The non profit sounds fascinating - as someone who is just about to graduate university I would love to do something like that in my community. My city does have programs that would help people get some hands-on experience with welding and the like, but most of those that I know of are limited to the local universities, and are thus non-accessible to lower-income families, plus there are only a few in the public schools in the area. Building some kind of a hacker/maker-space or at least a program to teach MIG/stick welding would be a lot of fun, and, I'd imagine, very rewarding.
Expanding on what klienbloo is saying a bit, the guy and girl who started the non-profit said it was relatively easy to get going once they established a plan. They mentioned having a mentor so I imagine that helped pave the way a bit easier. From what they told me their process was more or less. Have idea to share experience they have. Talk with faculty at local schools to see if they are interested in the program Figure out location to teach and how to select student who apply grant writing grant writing So much grant writing and then get things going. They really made it sound like the hardest part was grant writing to be honest. If you are offering a program that is lacking an option already it sounds like it is something very doable provided you put in the effort and legwork. We only talked for about 30 minutes so I'm sure there is a lot more to it but that's a synopsis of the conversation I had with them regarding the subject.
This is incorrect. Most votech programs are heavily subsidized by the federal government and many of them have not just fee reduction and scholarships they legit provide like food assistance while you're in the program. More than that, the budget for publicizing this fact is effectively zero so most people don't know about it. If you're poor you can learn to weld at a community college for almost nothing. More people should.but most of those that I know of are limited to the local universities, and are thus non-accessible to lower-income families, plus there are only a few in the public schools in the area.
That's great to hear! There is only a handful of colleges and universities in the city, and they certainly don't publicize whatever scholarships they have for their welding and fabrication programs. Then again, it might be different here in Canada, but I'd think that the government would provide a lot of the learning tools for free, seeing as how the student loans and grants are already comparatively generous. Reading up more on it, it turns out that most (all but one, actually) of the votech schools in my city have been closed or converted during the 90s, citing things like lack of funding and low enrolment. The one school that is currently operational was also closed down from 1996 to 2001, and has only been able to expand and upgrade its program through a fundraising effort from local businesses back in 2010 since the public school board refused to pay for it. I would also assume that it provides the tools needed to learn things like welding, but the information on their website is extremely scant, and I wasn't able to find whether there actually is a program to learn this one particular skill without having to be enrolled for the full school year.
A welding certification takes a while. In the US, at least, once you make that weld you own it for life. If a natural gas main bursts 40 years from now at the joint you welded, it's your fault. There's a big difference between "we went to Harbor Freight so that inner city kids could weld old car parts together to make public art" and "we're training people to make a living."I wasn't able to find whether there actually is a program to learn this one particular skill without having to be enrolled for the full school year.
Right, I definitely agree with the necessity of having a professional welder be properly trained, no matter how long it takes. However, coming back to what moslydeaf was talking about, what I'm actually interested in is a program for those inner city kids, and not for people who would necessarily want to graduate with a degree in Welding and Fabrication. For example, something like a BAJA SAE competition is a fairly complex project (certainly harder than most public art installations), that has the weld samples from the vehicle's roll cage being checked by the tech inspectors before the competitions due to the danger that would otherwise be present to the drivers. The welders, however, do not need to be licensed - a good number of my own friends participated in working on the vehicles in the last few years, most of them having received the same minuscule amount of MIG and TIG welding training as I have. A program for projects like that would be a quick and fairly painless introduction for people wanting to learn the basics, but unfortunately I'm just not aware of any public entity in my city that would provide it.